Dr. Niu resigns and transforms into a new farmer
In early June this year, with the opening of the 3rd fresh milk chain store in Chenzhou, Hunan, Dr. Zeng Bo preliminarily realized his new pasture plan: from pasture to tongue, citizens can drink locally produced, freshly made fresh milk in as little as 3 hours.
In 2006, Zeng Bo was admitted to the Institute of Subtropical Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Sciences for a combined master's and doctoral program, choosing the major of ruminant nutrition. After graduating with his doctorate, he did not pursue a scientific research path, but instead entered the animal nutrition department of a well-known multinational company, responsible for market and technical services in the Central South region. During several years of work, he traveled to more than 400 pastures across the Central South region and found that developing distinctive pastures had great potential in this region. At the end of 2012, Zeng Bo, whose annual salary had reached more than 300,000 yuan, made an unexpected decision: to start his own business.
"What I studied was the 'cattle major,' after graduation I engaged in 'cattle work,' and now I want to go to the countryside for 'cattle entrepreneurship,' turning knowledge into productivity and creating higher value." Zeng Bo persuaded his wife, who also studied agriculture, and aimed the pasture site at his wife's hometown - Daxiawei Village, Liangtian Town, Suxian District, Hunan Province. Daxiawei Village is only more than half an hour from downtown Chenzhou, has a beautiful natural environment, and is suitable for livestock breeding. In 2013, he raised 1 million yuan to establish Bozhi Animal Husbandry Co., Ltd., initially raising beef cattle.
However, plans cannot keep up with changes. With fluctuations in the beef cattle market, a single product, and severe homogeneous competition in the market, profit margins continued to shrink, and after a year the business encountered difficulties. Later, after market research, Zeng Bo found that dairy cattle breeding in Chenzhou was still a blue ocean, and people in the Lingnan region rarely had access to locally produced, authentically pure fresh milk. He began to change his thinking and turned his entrepreneurial direction toward the fresh milk market.
After 2 years of exploration, in December 2015, Zeng Bo decisively applied to register the "Milag Zhi Lian" fresh milk trademark, and in 2016, he opened three chain stores in succession in Chenzhou.
"In the next 3 to 5 years, about 40 fresh milk community service stations will be established in the urban area of Chenzhou, and chain operations will be carried out in each county town. Next, a comprehensive ecological agriculture base integrating a standardized breeding base of 1,000 dairy cows, a forage planting base, agricultural sightseeing experiences, and science education will also be built." Zeng Bo is full of confidence. He will firmly follow the path of integrating planting, breeding, and processing and the integrated development of the primary, secondary, and tertiary industries, and build it into the most distinctive and largest-scale pastoral pasture in the Lingnan region.
Li Gui, our reporter Zhang Zhenzhong